Gel tips are the term used to describe the early Rooney (2 band) heritage brushes not to be confused with the original Rooney 3 band heritage brushes. Morris & Forndran also released a few brushes with this type of hair around this time period. The Golden Nib had a batch of hair around 2010-2011 that I remember being extremely hooked and gel like. I personally have purchased a few brushes from Lee over the years that have demonstrated hooked tips some being more extreme than other, and even fewer having the gel like performance as the brushes mentioned above. I have heard gents mention they have purchased current brushes from the likes of Shavemac , M&F , TGN , and a few artisans that use these type of knots currently. Honestly have not been able to purchase a brush like this in about a year and a half or so, your best opportunity is to keep up with the bst. Place a WTB and see if anyone is interested in passing one along (rarely seen someone let one go but it's worth a try). Good luck with your search , I'll be honest I loved all of my true gel tip brushes (3-4) but I don't own any now. They were luxurious and unique but just weren't the ultimate brushes for me. What I mean is I have enjoyed many other brushes a bit more and I currently have only a 1305 . Two brushes I absolutely miss and would pay a great deal of money to have back are a 2009-2010 era Simpson Duke 2 , the hair was soft and luxurious very like the original Rooney heritage 3 band hair , and a Chubby 3 with the same hair. I passed them along early in my experience with wet shaving not knowing batches of hair changed so greatly. So to say I wish everyone could try a gel tip brush yes I wish they were available for all , but from experience and this is just my opinion it's ok for me not to have one , I wish you luck in your search.

The one theory I tend to hitch my wagon to the readiest is that they were over bleached or treated with chemicals too strong or for too long. Whatever caused the effect, no one seems to be reproducing it. I have read it was not intentionally done. Seems like even when they were being sold, it was hit or miss if your brush would exhibit the effect. Seems like not all brushes from the same batch acquired the characteristics of gel tips.

My experience is that there are lots of knots recently that are like gel tips. Maybe not as extreme as in the pictures in this thread, but gel tippy nonetheless. I have had several Morris and Forndran finest knots in the last 6 months that hooked in the first few uses and were clumpy and gooey soft in the tips.

I think you could fine something like this fairly easily.

Gel tips (or even these apparently quasi-gel tips) are not my faves, so I passed them all on already.

I owned a few M&F's and 1 Rooney with gel tips, they performed great, but not better than my new Shavemac 2-band Silvertips, which maybe not have the same gel tips, but are as soft and performs even better in my opinion.

Not sure I even like Gel tips that much to be honest.........no big deal really.

You might want to contemplate the new Shavemac Silvertip 2-Band knots. In my opinion, they are very close to the 'gel-tip' knots that you are looking for.
You could also find them in TGN 2-Band knots, but they aren't very consistent.
There is also the BST; you could place a WTB ad for one.
Good luck.

(05-28-2016, 02:28 PM)celestino Wrote: You might want to contemplate the new Shavemac Silvertip 2-Band knots. In my opinion, they are very close to the 'gel-tip' knots that you are looking for.
You could also find them in TGN 2-Band knots, but they aren't very consistent.
There is also the BST; you could place a WTB ad for one.
Good luck.

Yes. Although I haven't owned or used any of the brushes associated with gel-tippiness, the Shavemac Silvertip 2 band in my Duke 3.1 is beginning to develop hooked tips.

(05-28-2016, 02:28 PM)celestino Wrote: You might want to contemplate the new Shavemac Silvertip 2-Band knots. In my opinion, they are very close to the 'gel-tip' knots that you are looking for.
You could also find them in TGN 2-Band knots, but they aren't very consistent.
There is also the BST; you could place a WTB ad for one.
Good luck.

This!

I have two Shavemac silvertip 2 bands and they are crazily hooked tips. I have owned 3 M&F and none came anywhere near to the degree of curled\hooked\gel tips on the shavemac.

I would not get caught-up in the hype about hooked/gel tip knots. Some of the best knots I have are two-band badgers from Vie Long's Epsilon series. Great backbone, softness, and without hooked tips. Shavemac 2-band silvertip and Wiborg white badger are in the same class.